Scene: [An impromptu meeting at the shrine of St. Foutinus. A statue of St. Foutinus stands erect in an impressively sized bathtub allowing a variety of palmers and bedesmen to pour their wine offerings over his genitalia while those unable to be delivered of their spleen of lustihead leave wax images of their withered members in hopes a redress God grant. Doesn’t hurt to try.]

Averroes: [Holding a small lump of wax] What are you doing here?

Moses Maimonides: [The wounds on his face infected in places, pus oozing past stitches] I’m not speaking to you yet. Hlo Lilith. Are you allowed to swim in there?

Lilith: [Naked. Floating on her back in St. Foutinus’ tub.] Not really. But Foutinus and I have a little understanding, don’t we darling.

St. Foutinus: Screech owl! Night hag!

Lilith: He’s a little stiff at the moment. What are you doing here. Oh, I see. Sorry. Averroes, didn’t you have enough wax?

Averroes: Never you mind! You should get out of there, you could get pregnant that way.

Lilith: Oh honey, if that’s what you think no wonder you can’t get it up.

Moses Maimonides: Idiot.

Averroes: I though you weren’t speaking to me. Besides it’s true. St. Ultan bathes in cold water on windy days, just to avoid it. He’s got enough mouths to feed.

Moses Maimonides: You just told Lilith she could get pregnant. Dumbass. Don’t you know who she is? She is the inception of termination. She is the eraser of mistakes. She is the darkness at the end of the tunnel, the reliever of stomach bloat and frequent urination, the great evacuator. She’s what’s between a woman and her doctor. She takes care of it. She is the saver of the mother’s life! Might as well tell her the wind will get her pregnant.

Lilith: Oh is Zephyrus here? He blows both ways you know.

Moses Maimonides: [After a pregnant pause] Does he?

Averroes: [Dissembling, as his wont was] My apologies Lilith, but what are you doing bathing in there? That vinegar cures barrenness!

Scene: [A narrow street in 12th century Cordoba, Spain. Two men are huddled together, tussling over a cracked mirror. They are fighting but palpably they are not angry. These men are close in age and have known each other since childhood.]

Averroes: [letting go suddenly so the mirror strikes Moses Maimonides in the chest] Fine. Go ahead and try. But you know you can’t reach him without me.

Moses Maimonides: (defeated, with a sigh) Together then. But I speak first.

Averroes: Agreed. Now make room, I can’t see.

Moses Maimonides: That better?

Averroes: Yes. Ok go.

Together: We call upon the ani

Moses Maimonides: Stop! I’m speaking first.

Averroes: Fine. Agreed. Let’s get on with it.

Together: We call upon the anima mundi, the great soul of the world, to show us in this mirror the face of the one we most believe, the seeker of pure truth.

[The face of Aristotle appears in the mirror. He is irritated.]

Aristotle: You two again. Sheesh, can’t you leave a man in peace? What do you want now? I’m busy. Aquinas and I were trying to prove some nonsense of his with algebra over lunch. Well, he was having lunch, I was in the mirror. So what now?

Averroes: I have found two words in your Poetics that I do not understand.

Moses Maimonides: No. Stop. Don’t listen to him. We want to ask you about resurrection. I think that once we are dead that’s it for the body. In the world to come we will be souls but won’t need bodies. I’m certain you believe this is true.

Averroes: Incoherence! That is the incoherence of incoherence! There will be no personal immortality; we are all participating in the same intellect. Now as for those words I cannot translate

Aristotle: Have you read nothing I have written. Read first before you bother me! Look. I’m going to give you a piece of advice. Focus on the here and the now. That should be enough for both of you. Stick with the observable and above all, break that mirror and leave me alone!

Averroes: But I must understand! What is the meaning of comedy and tragedy? What are these things?

(In a blaze of pyrotechnics Aristotle makes his exit. Moses Maimonides obediently, and also in an attempt to reach the other side, smashes his face into the mirror. It shatters and in the reflected multiplicities of the shards still falling, Moses Maimonides sees the reflection of Averroes and the bloody mess of his own face, perplexed, gently disappear.)